Thursday, May 17, 2012

Older Child Adoption

Recently, a few others have spoken out about older child adoption. It is a topic that needs to be discussed so families that are considering older child adoption can go into it with their eyes wide open. Often times there is a push to adopt the waiting older child. The one that is about to age out... Often times families agree to bring this child home with an open heart and hope for success. But much more than hope is needed in this situation. Our friend Vickie wrote about it on her blog and I really encourage anyone who is considering older child adoption or adopting an aging out child to read her blog post. Click on the link and it should take you there.wwwourchinagirl.blogspot.comI am not by any means discouraging anyone from adopting older BUT instead encouraging anyone who is considering it to do so with an arsenal of reading (books on the issue) and support behind them!Mia will be our oldest child adoption. She will be 11yrs and about 5 months when she comes home.Sarah was 8 yrs and 9 months when she came home. We were a little shocked but because we had done our homework we believe we were prepared. Sarah responded well and within 6-9 months was a delightful young girl. She came to us with many unknowns, many fears, defense mechanisms and control issues. Over time she was able to adjust to family life and the walls came down.We have no regrets and we feel like the results- a lovely daughter, were well worth the challenging journey.We were tough and we had to be. We had to show our new daughter who was running the family. We had to show her that we were competent to do the job and we had to show her... her place as a family member.I had done most of the reading and had to give hubby on the job training. Praise God he was a fast learner and in time could see the underlying control issues that our new daughter had... She was trying to divide us instead of uniting as a family. One by one she attempted to draw each family member to her "side" but we had already talked to the older children so they were aware of what was happening. The older kids showed their support for their parents and all sibling- she learned so much from how they handled it.It was not wrong of her to do this... she had lived in survival mode for 8 plus years. This is all she knew.Other older adopted children may exhibit different behavior but no matter what they do it is all an attempt to survive. Now Sarah is lovely and a blessing beyond belief! We cannot imagine our life without her!Emma and Ellie came home a day before they turned 8 and 10. Emma was a challenge that we never anticipated in China. We actually considered not going through with her adoption, but God was so present and we put our trust in HIM. We are thankful we did... however Emma presents challenges that we were not aware of and did not anticipate. Still she is a blessing to us.Many families had adopted children that are close to aging out. At 12-13 yrs old they are considered teenagers and often have hormones that can add to the challenge. I actually think adopting at this age is different than adopting at the 8-11 age- but we will see AND I will let you know when Mia comes home!We also adopted our older daughters when our birth children were significantly older. In our opinion, it made it a lot easier. Our birth children did not ride the roller coaster that our new daughters were on... and actually wanted everyone in the home to be on. Being a bit older than average parents also helped, we were able to see what was happening and we (the parents) hopped off the roller coaster asap! We do not regret any of our older child adoptions. If we did, we wouldn't be doing it again!BUT, it was very challenging. Our family situation seemed to be a good fit for it. NOT all family situations are a good fit for bringing home an older child. If a family decides it is in the best interest of the child and the family to re-home... who are we to judge?Honestly, sometimes it just doesn't work out and re-homing is the best option.Please read the post I have linked to- it is a good one. Before rushing in to adopt an older child please pray, pray pray about it and educate yourself as much as possible.

22 comments:

Excellent excellent excellent!! Thank You Jean for speaking truth and hope....I am so thankful for you and Jim and your sage wisdom....Sooooo needed in the adoption world....love you and honored to call you friend!!

Jean you are such an inspiration to me. I would love to bring home a child between 12-10, but our SW will not allow us to adopt out of birth order. We adopted a 5 year old 3 years ago, and a 6 year old last year, and it has worked out beautiful! Our first adoption has some emotional challenges, but she is so sweet and precious, I would not change a thing!

A friend of mine sent me this blog post a couple of days ago. It really is very insightful. Jennifer Logue sent me a list of about 15 or so questions when we were considering older child adoption. They were very to the point and necessary to consider. At first we felt like there was no way we could take that on, but after MUCH prayer and thought, our fears started to melt away and our 13 year old daughter will be home sometime this fall. One of the key factors is does the child have any desire to be adopted? If not... Well, why force it? It just makes the uphill battle so much harder. Our daughter has written to us and said she is very happy to be coming into our family. We are so excited. Gods hand has been upon this adoption since day one. We have no doubt that this is His will for us, but in the back of my mind I still get nervous about my other little ones being negatively affected. Please, anyone reading this, please, would you pray for our family and for the heart of our daughter? Blessings, Rebecca

This is good, Jean! Thanks for posting it! I so wish that I had known more with our first older child adoption, but thankfully, God is faithful and we learned a lot. But, it takes a lot of faith and perserverance. It's definitely different than adopting a young child.

Thanks for this post Jean and the link to the other blog. That post was very interesting. I agree with everything said. One thing I would change with our older child adoption {if I could have a do over} would have been to wait until our birth children were older like you did. That has been such a struggle in our situation. But God did know all this when He called us to bring her home, so I continue to trust and hope in His promises.

lol....I educated my husband on an "as needed" basis also:) Lottie came home with so many control issues at the age of 9 months...I'm not kidding! I can't imagine have 10 or 13 years to perfect that control....lots of prayers coming your way my friend:)

As you know I adopted "aging out" child. I am very lucky to have talked to Vicki (the blog link) among others, it helped me greatly, I have told many people that you need to expect the worse, to read about the worse and hope for the better, it will prepare you a lot more.

We met in China while adopting our "older" Child :) Challenging doesn't even tip the iceburg, lol! But there are continual rewards that far out-weigh them... and I agree, it's not for everyone. I think I was prepared. But not for everything. But looking back I see how far we have come. How for Arielle has come. She is a blessing beyond anything I imagined. So helpful to us all and very loving! I think her hormones are the most difficult thing to deal with. It brings up all those feelings of neglect, insecurity, etc, that she has deep within. I've been reading Silent Tears to help me understand some of the treatment she has gone through in her life. A lot of what she does really makes sense to me. But most of it only surfaces during specific times in her cycle. tip: I got an app on my iphone to track her period. Now that we can "see" how her mood relates to her cycle, its much more managable during those times... lol! it really worked for us. Your family is beautiful, God Bless!

Such a beautiful article on child adoption. It is a beautiful thing to adopt a child and give him/her the best care and love that he/she deserve. I'm looking forward to read more of such informative blog. Thanks you so much for your work.

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I am happy to make this comment , my wife and I are now happily back together. I have to say it was effortlessly done! Within 2 days, My wife left me a year ago.with my one kid The longer she’s gone, the more I see what a coward I was. At first, I blamed her for leaving. I told her she was ‘wrong’. In fact, I slapped Scripture on her, trying to guilt-induce her any way I could. My anger make me only to pushed her farther away. I can’t believe the way I acted. My wife gave me chance after chance, and I ignored her. I contacted Dr Osauyi and within a few hours of speaking with him, I realized that Dr Osauyi was the person whom I could completely trust. I just wanted to thank you for all your magic spell and commitment ! and I will always be using Dr.Osauyi for further work in the future because he really put unity and smile on my family again. We are now blissfully celebrating our third year anniversary together. Thank you so much!!! For those who might also want to give him a try. Email him on Osauyilovespell@gmail.com. you will never regret ever contacting him i wish all that will contact him best of luck you can call his cell phone on +2347064294395 Rob Simpson form USA http://osauyilovespelll.webs.com/

You are right. Parents who are planning to adopt an older child adoption should know about the adoption. They should know about the benefits of going for an adoption http://www.provplace.org/four-benefits-of-older-child-adoption/.

About Me

Jim and I have been married for 33 plus years. He is the love of my life and my best friend! We have 5 older birth children and we are adding to our family through the blessings of adoption. We love the Lord Jesus and it is our mission to serve him. We have stumbled along the way but he continues to pick us up and send us on the journey he has planned for us. We are very thankful for that!

Email me!

I love to hear from bloggy readers! However, due to adopting so many treasures and homeschooling them it is challenging for me to find the time to email back. I will try but I can't guarantee I will be able to get back to you. This season will pass and in the future I look forward to being able to answer back! Thank you for your understanding!

jean.mulvahill@gmail.com

Friends to Share With!

Matt, Caitlin and Elodie(not pictured)

Matt (34 yrs old) and Caitlin were married on June 28th, 2014! They live and work in Denver, CO. Matt is working as a biostatistician for Denver Childrens Hospital. Caitlin is a special needs preschool teacher at one of the school districts in Denver. They have a precious little girl named Elodie!

Katie, Andrew, Emily and Ali (not pictured)

Katie (32 yrs) and Andrew were married on July 6th, 2012! They live in Alexandria, Virginia. They have two daughters, Emily 2.5 yrs and Ali 10 months old!

Billy and Kelly (not pictured)

Billy is 29 yrs old! He has his masters in accounting and works at a local accounting firm. Billy and Mark have a house about 15 miles away! It's so nice to have him nearby!

Mark

Mark is 27 yrs old. He is currently working on his masters in business through the Carlson School of Business. We are so happy he is finally living in the same city that we are in!

Johnny

Johnny is 24 yrs old. He is attending the University of St Thomas in St Paul, MN. He is playing for the Tommies soccer team!

Sarah Grace

Sarah is 17 yrs old. She came home in December 2008!

Emma Joy

Emma is 17 yrs old and came home in mid July 2010 along with her biological sister Ellie!

Ella Mei

Ellie is 15 yrs old and came home with her bio sister Emma in mid July 2010!

Mia Christine

Mia is 16 yrs old! She came home on February 2nd, 2013!

Ava Marie

Ava is 12 yrs old! She has been home since April 1st, 2011!

Melissa Faith

Melissa is 12 yrs old! She came home from China in early February 2013!

Abigail Elizabeth

Abby is 12 yrs old! She came home in December 2011!

Anna Violet

Anna is 11 yrs old. She has been home since August of 2007!

Benjamin David

Ben is 11 yrs old. He came home from China in early December 2013!

Samuel Jacob

Sam is 11 yrs old. He has been home since April 1st, 2011!

Madeline Mary

Madeline is 11 yrs old. She came home from China in early February 2013!

Joseph Michael

Joey is 9 yrs old! He came home with his new brother Ben this past December 2013!

Luke Lewis

Luke is 9 yrs old! He is our youngest! He came home in December 2011!

Quick Update On Us!

Hubby and I have 5 bio kids that are currently 21-31 yrs old. As our bio children were leaving the nest we felt called to serve our Lord through the blessings of adoption!

We have adopted 13 waiting children from China! Anna came home first on August 8th, 2007 (at 16 months). She is currently 9 yrs old! Sarah came home on December 5th, 2008 (at 8.5 yrs old). She is 15 yrs old now. Emma and Ellie came home on July 19th, 2010! They are bio sibs, and were 8 and 10 yrs old when they came home! They are now 14 and 12 yrs old. Next we brought home Sam at 4.5 yrs old and Ava Marie at 5.5 yrs old at the time of their adoption. They came home on April 1st, 2011 and are now 8.5 yrs and 10 yrsold.! Both of the kids are from Henan Province.

On our 5th adoption trip we journeyed to Abby and Luke. They came home at 5.5 and 3 yrs old. They have adjusted well! They are currently 9 and 6 years old!

We will traveled back to China for adoption trip #6 in January 2013. This time God blessed us with 3 lovely daughters from China! Mia is 12 years old, Melissa is 9 years old and Madeline is 8 years old now. We feel so very blessed to have these darling girls in our family!

Our 7th and last adoption trip to China was to bring home our two boys- Ben 7 yrs and Joseph 5 yrs. The boys are now 9 and 6.5 yrs old

We have had many many procedures and surgeries over the years, God has been so very kind and they have been amazingly successful!! We still have more surgeries in our future and we will rely on HIM and pray our way through.

Hubby and I are passionate about special needs adoption. We feel called to adopt and we are loving every minute of it! We are both in our mid to late 50's. We can't think of anything we would love to do more than what we are doing right now! We are thankful for this opportunity to enjoy these wonderful children!

We have chosen to home school our children from China. When adopting older children they really don't fit into one grade, they are combination of many grades (including 2nd in math but Pre-k in reading/phonics). We also feel like we missed out on so many years with our wonderful children, we don't want to miss out on any more! Plus it is great for attachment and bonding!!

If you are considering adoption feel free to email or message me with any questions you may have!